Heartbreak at freedom for killers
Families of crime victims shattered after parole ruling
● Prisons are scrambling to comply with a Constitutional Court ruling that makes prisoners serving life and long-term sentences suddenly eligible for parole.
The ruling in May followed a challenge by a prisoner serving life who successfully argued that parts of the Correctional Services Act dealing with parole are unconstitutional.
However, for families of the prisoners’ victims the chance that the perpetrators could walk out of prison earlier than expected has opened a floodgate of emotions.
Antoinette Venter will do anything to erase the memory of the moment fragments of her 20-year-old brother’s skull fell into her hands. It was December 1997 and she was just nine, standing in the kitchen of their home in Kriel, Mpumalanga, with the bloodied SBV cash-in-transit uniform of her murdered brother, Diederick du Plooy.
Just days before, Du Plooy and five colleagues — Wilhelm Kriel, Pieter Henze, Alan Kotze, Andre Cornelius and Damian Miller — had been killed in a heist near Marble Hall by 20 robbers. The killers received six life sentences on October 5 2004 and may now walk to freedom years earlier than expected thanks to the Constitutional Court ruling.
Wilhelm’s widow, Gerna, said: “These men must die in jail. They robbed my son, who was just six months when his dad died, and me of a father and husband. These guys were meant to spend the rest of their lives in prison, now they get a second chance.”
The ruling scrapped parole measures in the 1998 Correctional Services Act, which came into effect on October 1 2004.
Prior to this date, prisoners sentenced to life were eligible for parole after serving 20 years. Under the new law, lifers had to serve 25 years, with no chance of being released earlier on good behaviour.
The court found the act unconstitutional because prisoners who had committed their offences before October 1 2004 but had only been sentenced afterwards had to serve a minimum of 25 years.
The act was challenged by Zonderwater prisoner Oupa Phaahla, who committed murder before October 1 2004 but was sentenced on October 5.
The court gave parliament two years to amend the act and said in the meantime prison officials must use the old 1959 Correctional Services Act to handle parole applications. That law said lifers are eligible for parole after 20 years and can secure an earlier release through credits earned from good behaviour and the completion of reform programmes. The credit system, which the 1998 act abolished, can potentially cut seven years off the minimum 20-year sentence.
Those who killed Du Plooy and his colleagues were originally eligible for parole only in 2029 but are now eligible.
Mandla Mkabela, chief operations commissioner of correctional services, in a confidential circular, gave regional commissioners an instruction on June 3 to compile a list of affected prisoners.
“In essence, this means the parole regime applicable to an offender is determined by the date of commission of an offence and not date of sentence,” his letter read.
Mkabela instructed case management administrators to manually sift through all warrants to identify offenders sentenced on or after October 1 2004 but who had committed their crimes before this date.
Also, a group of offenders sentenced between March 1 1994 and September 30 2004, who were on parole for life, could now have their parole shortened to three years. “Those who have already served three years of parole must be released from the system of community corrections,” said Mkabela.
Correctional services spokesperson Singabako Nxumalo said: “Case management administration will have to keep lists of all qualifying offenders and ensure parole consideration dates are advanced according to categories of sentences. Qualifying inmates must undergo relevant rehabilitation programmes and be considered by the case management committee, correctional supervision, parole board and the minister.”
Kristen Petersen, a Civil Society Prison Reform Initiative human rights law researcher, questioned whether a situation would develop where prisoners were granted parole without proper investigations in order for the law to be complied with.